Bug Hunt
by UKHoneyB
Summary: [Post ME1] Shepard and Kaidan take their shore leave, but there's something that keeps on bugging Shepard.


A/N: Between my house being invaded with bugs, and sketching out a Mass Effect fic (which looks to be getting to _Max Steel: Redux levels of length_) this popped into my head. Set after the events of Mass Effect 1 and follows some of my story lines on my in-progress ME fic. Kinda cracky/silly but hopefully amusingly so.

**Bug Hunt**

Allison concentrated on her target, her enemy. Its movements were erratic, zipping from one spot to another with a speed she'd hardly ever experienced before. She waited, watching, calculating its movements, estimating where it would move next, and then...

A bang echoed out and Allison smiled to herself. _Gotcha._

"Are you hunting bugs again? I told you, you're fighting a losing battle."

Allison leaned back against the bench, eyeing up the squashed remains of the fly she'd just killed. Damn things were zippy - and just why did Earth need so many different species of them, all getting in the way and being annoying. She hopped up, quickly wiping away the remains of the bug on the table and washing her hands before Kaidan walked out of the open patio doors, two beer bottles in his hand.

"Nothing special," he said as he offered one to her; she took it, noting that the cap was already off and took a quick sip. If there was one thing she hated about being a biotic, it was that it took twice as much alcohol for it to have an effect on her. Well, okay, that and the amount they needed to eat, pushing their food costs almost astronomically high.

Kaidan sat down gently next to her, taking a sip of his own beer. His left arm snaked around her shoulders, exerting a small amount of pressure encouraging her to shuffle closer. She obliged, looking out across the beach to the setting sun.

"Hard to believe shore leave will be over tomorrow. Doesn't feel like it's been two weeks already."

"We were travelling for quite a bit of that," Allison said with a nonchalant shrug, and Kaidan laughed.

"Oh yes. Commander Shepard, spacer at heart, can't stand staying in one place for more than a few days at a time." He removed his arm from around her shoulders and placed his beer on the table in front of them, ticking off what he said on his fingers. "The Citadel, post-battle medical check-ups and mission debriefings. We stick around long enough to spend a day with your parents - _one day_ - before you decide that we need to get the _Normandy_ up and running again. We swing by Terra Nova and Elysium, staying at both places for only a couple of days, and I finally persuade you to travel here, to Earth, to see where all your ancestors came from. By the time we get here, we have three days before our end of shore leave."

"I told you that Terra Nova was boring," Allison muttered into her beer bottle.

"I don't know. The two days we were there was hardly long enough to get a good opinion on our hotel room, let alone the city." Kaidan picked up his beer again, and sighed as Allison caught sight of something - another bug, he assumed. She never took her eyes off a point in the middle distance as she sipped her own beer, her back straightening as she kept the enemy within her sights.

He put his beer down on the table. "We have one day of shore leave left, and I intend to use it to its full extent." He grabbed Allison's own beer, ignoring her protests, and sat it beside his. "Change. Now. We've not even touched the beach since we've been here."

A sly grin slid across Allison's features. "Is that an order, Lieutenant?"

"It most certainly is, Commander." Kaidan met Allison's grin with a smirk of his own. Keeping the grin on her face, she stood up, the bench instantly seeming very empty.

"Be careful, Lieutenant," she said as she sauntered away, a sway in her hips. "I could have you for insubordination for that."

"I consider it worth it."

[ - ]

Half an hour later, Kaidan was grinning again as he heard some squeals and shrieks from Allison. She'd changed into a deep red bikini that she'd picked up last-minute on their journey to Earth and was standing ankle-deep in the ocean, looking down uncertainly as the surf rocked back and forth, sending small waves over her legs.

"It's cold!" she managed to yell out after hearing a chuckle from Kaidan; he was already a good distance out, lazily swimming back and forth parallel to the beach as Allison did her best to warm up to the idea of willingly submerging herself in cold water.

Kaidan sighed and shook his head as ten more minutes passed and Allison was only now walking in water that reached up to just below her knees. At this rate, it would take her all day to actually get to a depth she could swim in. Kaidan frowned as a thought crossed his mind.

"Do you know how to swim?"

"Dad took me when I was younger. In a nice, _indoor, heated_ pool I might add!" She let out another shriek as a large wave hit her thighs. "Heated!" she added, sending Kaidan off on another round of laughter. He swam a couple of strokes closer to the shore, standing up when the water became too shallow to continue swimming in. He failed to ignore Allison giving him a quick once over before she shuffled forwards into water that was deeper by, oh, a couple of millimetres.

"Joker would be having a field day here," Kaidan said, and Allison shot him a dark look. "Can you imagine it on the news vids?" He mimed a camera drone. "'Famous first human Spectre Allison Shepard struggles to swim in the ocean. Exclusive footage later today!'"

He was shoved - rather gently, he had as an afterthought - back into the water. A flicker of a blue corona stayed around Allison for a few seconds before fading, replaced by a small smirk on her face. Kaidan met her gaze, a thought flickering across his face. He stood up in the thigh-deep water.

"Oh, no! Alenko, don't you -"

Allison's complaints were cut short as a carefully controlled biotic lift pulled her up, dragged her well past Kaidan before settling just above ocean water more than deep enough to swim in. A split-second later his biotic lift disappeared, dumping Allison directly into the water.

She broke the surface of the water a few seconds later, wet hair plastered against her head and a glare levered at Kaidan.

"That," she said, beginning to take slow, languid strokes towards him. "Was not fair."

Kaidan waded back into the depths, starting to swim towards her after a few steps. They met more or less halfway, just shallow enough that Kaidan was able to stand on the ocean floor, waves lapping at his neck; Allison, being a good few inches shorter, had to tread water. She wrapped her arms around his beck, his hands resting on her waist. A smile slowly appeared on her face as she gently pulled him to her, their lips meeting gently, a soft kiss that was more a gentle touch, affection, a reminder that the other was still there than with any kind of passion.

Allison pulled away, resting her forehead against Kaidan's, her hands still wrapped around his neck; one of his hands moved up to cup her jaw, his thumb absently brushing against her right cheek. Allison closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh.

"You know, we could have had months of shore leave," Kaidan muttered. "We certainly earned it."

Allison's eyes opened, expression changing to a frown. "Are you annoyed?"

Kaidan hesitated. "A little," he said eventually, dropping both of his hands to his side, Allison removing her hands from around his neck a few seconds later. "When we talked about shore leave, when the fight against Saren, Sovereign was over...I was kinda expecting more than two weeks."

An apologetic smile appeared on Allison's face as she began to slowly swim back to shore. "The Council wants us to investigate - rumours, reported sightings of geth." She sighed before taking a deep breath and diving under the surface of the water. She resurfaced a short time later, twisting onto her back and floated lazily, looking up at the cloudless sky.

"They still don't believe us. About Sovereign. They're still trotting out the line that he was some kind of experimental geth craft." A scowl marred her features and she flipped back onto her front. "There's evidence littered all over the Citadel and yet they'd still rather turn a blind eye to it all." She huffed out an annoyed sigh and began to make her way quickly back to shore; Kaidan watched her for a bit before following her.

"Apparently I'm the only one that they trust to be able to do this," she said as Kaidan walked up on the sand behind her. "They specifically requested me, the _Normandy_..."

Kaidan wrapped his arms around Allison's waist, pulling her close, her back against his chest. He rested his head on her shoulders, staying like that for a few moments.

"Last day of shore leave, Shepard," he murmured. "We can call bull on the Council when we're back on the _Normandy_. Today..."

"Today we're on shore leave," Allison said, twisting around in his grip. She was now chest to chest, pressed up against him with a faint smile on her face. "And I plan to use all the hours we have left to our advantage."

A wide grin appeared on Kaidan's face seconds before he moved to kiss her. This one was frantic, passionate, one of his hands moving up her side, along her shoulder, resting at the back of her neck. The other moved downwards, cupping her ass, pressing her closer to him. She responded with a kiss of similar ferocity, one hand burying in his short hair, the other holding onto his right bicep.

Allison pulled back - eyes half-lidded, slightly flushed, lips swollen - and smirked at Kaidan. "You know, I think I could do with a shower."

[ - ]

The bedroom window was open, the light breeze causing the half-closed curtains to flutter lazily. The sun was creeping to the horizon, slowly setting, and Allison perched herself on her elbow, free hand tracing lazy patterns on Kaidan's bare chest. He stirred sleepily, muttering something incomprehensible before shifting and settling back into slumber.

Allison slipped back down onto the bed, moving close to Kaidan and pulling the bedsheets up. The sudden drop in temperature was easily attributed to the sun setting and the window being open, but she was feeling too lazy to get up and close the window.

Besides, it gave her a good excuse to curl up close to Kaidan.

She rested her head on his shoulder, looped one of her legs around his, and placed an arm across his waist. Her eyes felt heavy and she forced back a yawn; her efforts were pointless as she soon succumbed to sleep.

[ - ]

"Damn it!" Allison muttered as she looked out to the patio. Their long-abandoned beers had become a breeding ground for a multitude of flying bugs. Allison debated the merits of rescuing the beers for the trash, or leaving it there for Kaidan - who had much more experience dealing with the bastard things, mister 'I spent all my childhood on Earth unlike a certain Commander'.

She slammed the patio door shut a little more forcefully than she had intended, and turned on her heel towards the kitchen area. It was fitted with the essentials, but nowhere near enough room for more than one person to move around comfortably. At least, not without a whole lot of body contact.

Unfortunately, the patio doors being left open meant there was more than a few of the flies zooming around the main room of the villa. Allison flicked a tiny barrier at a small group of them, the insects scattering before it could impact.

"Tell me again why Earth has so many of these damn things," she muttered, intending it to be only for her ears when she heard quiet chuckling from behind her. She looked over to see Kaidan, clad only in a pair of pants and with a smile on his face.

"You really are a spacer, aren't you?" From anyone else, it would have been an insult. From Kaidan, it was affection mixed with mirth. "Have you ever seen snow?"

"Of course. You can't go past any December celebrations without all the vids showing the stuff."

"In person."

"In the Mako. Drove over mountains over the stuff."

That drew another laugh from Kaidan. "That's settled. This December we're taking some leave to Vancouver, visit my parents, and for you to see some snow. Without the Mako being in the way."

"I suppose I have no argument in the matter?"

"None."

Allison smiled before heading over to the kitchen, opening the fridge when she got close enough. A quick scan of the contents showed little that would suffice for a decent meal, and she closed the door before considering their options.

"I spotted a decent restaurant yesterday," Kaidan said. "About ten, fifteen minutes walk away."

"Sounds good to me."

[ - ]

Allison allowed herself one last, almost regretful look back at the villa as she hiked her duffle up on her back. Kaidan looked over at her, quirking an eyebrow, but she said nothing. They had a scheduled shuttle up to one of the public transport ships to take them across to the Citadel, and as much as she longed to use all of the time they had left until they hit the Citadel and officially ended their shore leave, public transports wouldn't wait for them.

She quickened her pace, reaching Kaidan and falling into step with him. He grabbed her free hand with his, giving it a quick squeeze before letting go.

"I have to say, I will be looking forward to our next shore leave," he said.


End file.
